


Captains of Christmas

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Boxing Day, Brotherly Bonding, Christmas, Christmas Caroling, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Christmas Smut, Clothing Kink, Day At The Beach, First Christmas, M/M, Music, Outdoor Sex, Sherlock in Panties, silly sex talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:36:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's John and Sherlock's first Christmas together - and it promises to be very different from any Christmas they've had before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christmas Past

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it's a bit behind actual Christmas. :)  
> I will add tags and characters as I go, and smut will be on the menu but not quite yet. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas in Australia is not like Christmas in England.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:  
> tinnie - can of beer  
> grouse - terrific/fabulous/excellent  
> thongs - in Australian parlance, flip flops for your feet. But also tiny underwear.  
> 
> 
> If any other terms puzzle you, please just ask for a definition!

John says that while Afghanistan did its level best to kill him dead, the thing that was nearest to ending him was his quixotic decision, his first Christmas in Australia, to cook a 'full, proper English Christmas' for his co-workers at the boat hire shed, in his dilapidated little granny flat an hour away from the beach. 

The thing had started well enough. Plenty of Australians cook a roast chicken, or even a turkey; they prepare a Christmas pudding and brandy sauce; they wear the stupid hats and pull the ridiculous crackers. So it wasn’t a Proper British Christmas Roast that nearly killed John Watson. Not exactly.

What nearly killed John Watson dead that first Aussie Christmas in Sydney in 2011 was trying to cook a giant turkey and all the trimmings in a poorly ventilated kitchen when it was 38 degrees Celsius outside and 46 degrees Celcius _inside_. Well, that combined with the number of tinnies he downed trying to keep cool because he'd worn a Christmas jumper. _On a bet_. 

Essentially - and John later owned up to this sorry fact - it was his own stupidity that nearly achieved what over ten years in the British army in hotspots like Iraq and Afghanistan, a car bombing, a shot to the shoulder and a staph infection had failed to do.

Once he'd regained consciousness in the backyard kiddy pool full of ice his well-meaning sort-of-friends had dumped him in, and he'd self-administered first aid for dehydration, heat exhaustion and the blow on the head from dropping like a stone to the linoleum, he'd binned the burnt turkey, downed another three cans of lager, eaten ham sandwiches for Christmas dinner and swore he'd do Christmas Aussie-style from here on in. 

His second Aussie Christmas was only a traditional Aussie Christmas in the sense that, every December, some part of the country was generally on fire, and the year he moved to Melbourne it turned out to be the part he’d elected to stay in with some folks he’d met at the café where he learned to be a barista.

The holiday house near Grampians National Park belonged to the parents of one of the wait staff, who invited John to the impromptu Waifs and Strays Christmas. Most of those who went were those on working visas who weren’t heading back to the UK or Europe for the holidays.

In relative terms, the fire wasn’t a bad one that year. It was nothing near as bad as the Black Saturday bushfires from February 2009 that left 173 dead. But bushfires in summer are unpredictable at the best of times, what with the long dry months and the gusting winds and the way the oil in eucalyptus trees made them explode.

The Australian girl, Liz, whose parents owned the place, had rallied the guests to prepare the house, even though the fires were fifty kilometres away at that point – they raked out the leaves from the gutters and away from the house and yard; they filled the gutters with water from the mains and soaked the roof and the ground all around with tank water as well. They filled the tubs and sinks. They put emergency supplies in the car in case they had to evacuate. John, having the medical background, put together a burns first aid kit from what he could find in the house. They all told a lot of jokes and told about the YouTube videos they’d seen of blokes pissing on fires or fighting grass fires while dressed in nothing but shorts and flip-flops, then laughed harder than ever when Liz told them that Australians called flip-flops _thongs_ , envisioning people fighting fires in flimsy underwear.

They all thought they were just taking precautions that wouldn’t be necessary. They all thought it was sort of _fun._

Then the hot, dry wind blew high and hard and changed direction and they couldn’t evacuate because the national park was burning and the eucalypts were exploding on either side of the only road out, and trying to cut through the bush would just get them all killed.

So John Watson found himself at war with nature, using hose and bucket and soaking wet rags to douse and beat out flames that licked too near. If the house caught they’d all go up in flames.

Six of them – John and Liz and two Irish backpackers and a woman from California who’d seen this shit before and a French boy who’d never seen anything like it in his life – spent five hours defending their lives by defending the property.

Then the Country Fire Authority truck drew up and emptied their tank on the worst of it, and the wind changed direction, and the fire bent back on itself. Sooty, skin red from the heat of the flames and the 34C day and the exertion, the six of them and the fire crew coughed and breathed and could not believe how lucky they’d been.

There were no bad burns, but everyone was exhaustered and sore. John administered first aid with the kit he'd made and the cool water they still had in the bathtub and the laundry and kitchen sinks.The household shared every bit of water and soft drink they still had with the firies and heard the news that the burn was under control, six houses lost, but no lives, and then they popped champagne and beer that was stocked up for New Year’s.

The next year, 2013, John spent quietly on the banks of the Yarra, eating a sandwich, brushing crumbs from his newly grown moustache, watching families cooking lunch on the free gas barbecues and thinking it was nice to not have any dramas for a change, even if it was a bit lonely. And a bit boring.

In 2014, John started work at Captains of Industry. Greg had invited John to join him and Mycroft for their annual Christmas do, but John went back to the UK instead.

He spent Christmas with his family, who, you know, he _loved_ , except they drove him fucking crazy, and Dad got drunk, and Harry got drunk, and Mum played the martyr card instead of kicking them both into the fucking street for behaving like particularly obnoxious teenagers, and John sort of missed fighting the bushfire, which was at least a simple kind of fight to have and nobody took it personally.

This year will be different. This year, John’s wars are all fought, he knows how to do Christmas in a country where the holiday isn’t the only bright spot in a cold and bleak season, but rather the kick-off for a long, lazy summer, and, most importantly of all, he is with the most important person in the world. The best and smartest and most beautiful man in the entire goddamned universe.

He’s so excited about that, and _so_ wanting to give Sherlock an excellent Christmas, he’s bought Sherlock eight presents. He thinks it’s not enough. He’s wondering if he should pull a Lestrade and wrap his cock in red ribbon as well. The Ribbon Bedecked Dancing Cock Protocol isn’t necessary any more of course, but it could be fun.

Then John looks at the note that Sherlock handed him that morning, pressed into the inside pocket of his coat as John left the Adelphi – it’s been kind of like their honeymoon, being there, before they’ve even shared a home – and he grins.

Good of Sherlock to let him know the size; and he knows exactly what colour to get.

*

2015 will be Sherlock’s sixth Christmas in Australia.

His first Christmas, he took a break from uni in Sydney to come to Mycroft and Greg’s place on Bell Street in Fitzroy.

Once he’d managed to – mostly inadvertently– insult everyone present with his deductions, he withdrew to the upstairs library, huddled in a corner and read his book about serial killers until everyone went away. Greg brought him some pudding and punch and was kind without being overbearing about it. Mycroft let him be until very late, then stuck his head around the door and gave him a set of cufflinks. He was the kindest Sherlock had ever known him, and although he doesn't show it, from that point on, Sherlock decided that he liked Greg Lestrade and he liked Mycroft when he was with Greg Lestrade and that he would be damned if he would give their blighted father any report on that happy relationship beyond 'fuck off and leave them alone'.

Nevertheless, Sherlock hasn’t been to a Mystrade Shindig of any description since. His social anxiety and his inevitable capacity to piss everyone off and start a fight has kept him solitary during the festive season and any other excuse for a party you could care to name.

Sherlock, on the whole, is not a Christmas kind of guy anyway. So mostly he has worked over Christmas, either completing summer school subjects while studying for his three extra degrees, and later, even after he moved to Melbourne, being on standby for clients in case there’s some epic IT fail, though there never has been. His work is too good for that.

But this year he is shedding his bah-humbuggery because this year he has John to spend his Christmas with, and when John is at his side, the social anxiety seems to evaporate because it’s only John’s opinion that matters. And John’s opinion is that Sherlock Holmes is … what’s that strange word some of the locals use? Grouse. John thinks Sherlock is _grouse._

Sherlock has bought too many presents for John, or perhaps not enough. It’s hard to tell which. Because on the one hand, John seems so self-contained that he doesn’t seem to need anything more than he already has, now that he has Sherlock; but on the other hand, Sherlock would like to shower John with gifts, morning noon and night, from now until the sun explodes. From tiny flowers he’s picked from random gardens, to perfect petit fours made at the best local bakeries, to pretty, soft little lady knickers for him to wear on the bad days, to really luxurious socks for his lovely feet, to jewels and silks and exotic perfumes. All of these things and so many more, up to and including midnight picnics at the toxic garden, looking at the wide open sky, where Sherlock will tell John how perfectly delicious and perfectly wonderful and perfectly perfect he is.

This year, for the first time since he was a small boy, Sherlock is really looking forward to Christmas.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greg and Mycroft's two-storey house in Bell Street, just off Brunswick Street, in Fitzroy, looks a bit like the middle one here:  
> 


	2. The Day Before the Day Before Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are at the magistrates' court, and encounter an old enemy - and possibly a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Australia, we've traditionally used 'solicitor' and 'barrister' instead of 'lawyer' (though the latter term is now common here.) Barristers and solicitors are both lawyers, but there is some difference in how they operate (which can also depend on what state they practice law in). Broadly speaking, solicitors are more likely to be the ones to prepare legal paperwork and be 'behind the scenes' lawyers, while barristers are usually the ones who appear in courts. This site provides a bit more information: [ABC Legal](http://www.abclegal.com.au/lawyers)

It is the day before the day before Christmas – the 23rd – and Sherlock is at the Magistrates’ Court for the committal hearing against James Moriarty, for the judge to decide if there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to court.

Before the hearing, in the foyer, they encountered Moriarty, who leers at Sherlock for half a second, despite a cautionary hand on his arm from his counsel. Moriarty feints a lunge at Sherlock, who doesn’t even blink. His haughty eyebrow is arched as John steps between them, cool and calm, arms folded.

He says, mild and urbane: ‘How’s the nose, Jim? Doesn’t look like they set it quite straight. The doctors may have to rebreak it, if you need that fixed. The new front teeth look good, though. Less rabbity.’

Moriarty glares poison at John, until John smiles. Even Moriarty’s counsel recoils at that smile, and they flee urgently, only resurfacing at the hearing.

Moriarty’s counsel, Moran, uses his knowledge of John’s unsettling cutthroat smile and tries to make John look bad – war veteran, medical discharge, PTSD, unstable, violent, blah,blah, blah.

John, in contrast, is calm and friendly and looks like a refined and polite 19th century gentleman, with his suit and moustache and carefully combed hair. He looks like the kind of man who says ‘By God!’ and gives up his seat to the infirm. His unfailing courtesy and clear way of speaking leave Moran’s ploy in the dust. Additionally, the judge’s nephew is recently returned to Australia after serving with distinction in Afghanistan himself is not inclined to go with such idiotic generalisations. Sherlock and John give their testimony clearly and precisely. Moriarty manages to look like he has a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, as the saying goes, with how he watches Holmes and Watson with the cold, unblinking oiliness of a taipan.

The case is referred for trial, which means the judge thinks the charges will stick.

Now in the foyer again, Sherlock is waiting for John to return from the loo so they can get home and shower the mere proximity of that venomous little fucker off their skin.

Sherlock is watching people come and go, and deducing them left, right and centre. To his right sits a blonde woman who looks at first glance like she’s a long-suffering suburban mum about to pick up her off-the-rails kid from a hearing related to drugs-related violence.

Except for her watchful eyes.

Sherlock takes a second look and revises his summary _. Lazy thinking, Holmes. Interesting choices she’s making. She aims to look harmless. Must serve her well in court._

Because the blonde woman is watching everyone, noting everything. The voluminous bag at her feet is not filled with everyday detritus, but court files, barely visible beneath the zipper that is not quite done up. A solicitor, perhaps, though her bearing suggests she may in fact be a barrister, representing cases in court rather than being on the administrative side of the legal practitioner fence, with conveyancing and wills and the like. There’s more of the predator about her that’s in keeping with being a barrister.

(He remembers a joke Greg told him, about how in Melbourne people are more impressed by you being a barista rather than a barrister. The barista he knows bears out the truth of it.)

This Probably-Barrister is dressed a little casually, even for the Australian legal system, but the bulge in the side of the bag indicates a change of shoes – square heeled, three centimetres high but solid – something business-like and sensible. The softer bulge next to it indicates a change of clothes, too, now done with and she’s back in her civvies.

Straighten her spine, brush her hair back, lift the chin, strip the guardedness from the way she’s watching, and she would certainly look commanding before a jury.

She grins at him.

Startled, Sherlock pulls himself to stiff-backed alertness. The woman’s eyes are sharp indeed, but also rather… merry. _Amused_.

‘You don’t seem in need of representation,’ she says, ‘But appearances can be deceiving.’

‘No,’ he says, trying to get her measure, ‘Witness.’

‘Ah,’ she says, and looks around the foyer. ‘I’m waiting for one of those myself. A client. He’s late.’

Sherlock blinks and looks as well. There’s John, coming out of the gents. There’s a short young man behind him, looking furtive.

‘There’s yours,’ says Sherlock, ‘And mine.’

The woman peers at John, who is approaching, and the other, who is hovering uncertainly by a pillar. Trying to hide? ‘How do you know the other’s mine?’

‘He keeps glancing at you and then away. Body language suggests indecision and also fear. He isn’t scoping the floor for anyone else, so it’s not as though he’s afraid someone will see him with you. He’s afraid of _you._ ’

The woman laughs. _Merrily_. The laugh says ‘who would possibly be afraid of little old me?’ but her eyes say, ‘too fucking right’.

Sherlock thinks she’s _fascinating._

‘You are correct,’ says Sherlock, as John comes alongside, ‘He is hiding something, and he is lying to you.’

She tilts her head to regard Sherlock carefully. ‘You know him, do you? You know about the case?’

‘Never seen him before in my life.’

John beams down at Sherlock. Without knowing a thing about what’s going on, John is looking at Sherlock like he is brilliant, and about to do something even more brilliant, and so it’s for John rather than this strange woman that Sherlock speaks.

‘He’s not merely nervous, he’s _afraid_. Of you. As I said. You said he is your client – a witness, rather than the accused. If he was afraid of the accused he’d be nervous when he saw you, perhaps afraid of testifying, but that’s not his primary emotion. The way he’s moving, hiding from you – though he’s not bolting because you can’t help but see him leave. Yet he won’t approach you and he clearly doesn’t realise you’ve already seen him. His skin is flushed, his heartrate is up – even from here you can see the way the prominent veins at his temple are pulsing, and he’s sweating profusely. John, when he was in the gents with you – cubicle or urinal?’

‘Him? Urinal. Shy bladder, though.’

‘No, he simply ducked in there when he saw Ms…’

‘Morstan,’ she supplies, her expression intrigued.

‘When he saw Ms Morstan waiting, he hid in the gents, and came out directly behind you hoping not to be seen. A witness afraid of the person he is testifying against make sense, and such a man might be nervous of the consequences of being a witness, and anxious about speaking with the lawyer. But a client afraid of the person representing you? This indicates that he is afraid of the consequences not from the accused but from the _lawyer_. Why would a client be afraid of consequences from their own lawyer? He is lying about something. Something important. Something he thinks you will learn soon, if you don’t know it already.’

Sherlock halts. John is gazing on Sherlock with that _you-are-amazing_ beam of pride. Ms Morstan is gazing at him like he sprouted horns. He waits to be told he’s a freak, that he doesn’t know a damn thing, and to fuck off.

Ms Morstan’s expression morphs into a beaming smile. ‘I didn’t _know_. I _suspected_ , though. You’re quite right. Tell me, can you tell if he’s had a tattoo done in the last few days? It would be on his…’

‘Right forearm,’ says Sherlock immediately, ‘Within the last two days. There are stains on his shirt cuff from the Bepanthen cream and his keeps scratching over the area. Hard to say from this distance but I would estimate so big,’ Sherlock draws a circle on the corresponding area of his own forearm, about five centimetres in circumference.

‘The little shit,’ says Ms Morstan, ‘Set up the accused from a rival gang, with evidence that’s convincing but not quite ringing true. Denny here’d never think up that scheme on his own. He’s thick as a plank. Well, you can see that. He couldn’t bloody wait to get his initiation tatt done, ahead of getting a conviction. Idiot.’ She waves at the man, Denny, behind the pillar, who flinches, and then she smiles at Denny, and the flinch becomes an outright cringe.

‘Thanks. You’ve saved me a lot of time,’ says Ms Morstan, ‘And since you’re here, can you tell me anything about _him_?’ She nods at a man in a grey suit who has paused by the doors to exchange some words with the security guard there.

Sherlock peers after the fellow, and feels John watching him.

‘Policeman. Retired recently due to injury. Also recently divorced. Pets – a Maltese terrier, I think from the white hairs on the legs of his trousers, and a cat, judging from the pulled threads on the sleeve of his coat. Has a girlfriend – he’s bought her an early Christmas present. Jewellery. Not an engagement ring, however, he lacks the nerves of a man about to pop the question. A necklace, most likely. Looking for work, and the guard… yes, they know each other. The guard seems to have something to suggest.’

‘Oh, good, Jack needs a job,’ she says, and her smile then becomes soft, kind, warm as she looks upon the ex-cop, Jack. ‘I hope he didn’t spend too much on the necklace. He is such a romantic, though.’ Then she takes her eye away from the guard and her boyfriend Jack and smiles warmly at Sherlock. ‘You’re extraordinary, whoever you are.’

‘Sherlock Holmes. This is John Watson.’

Ms Morstan shakes hands with them both. ‘Tell me, Mr Holmes, can you do that trick all the time.’

‘It’s not a trick,’ say Sherlock and John simultaneously and at least as cross as each other.

‘It’s a _science_ ,’ says Sherlock, ‘The science of deduction.’

‘My apologies,’ says Ms Morstan, very sincerely, though there seems still to be an undercurrent of amusement. ‘But really, what you’ve done here is astonishing. I might be able to find some use for it, if you’re consistent, and available.’

‘I am,’ Sherlock says haughtily, and John is at his elbow, chin high, shoulders back, a silent wall of ‘ _he is so fucking brilliant you have no fucking idea, he is the fucking sun shining out of a clear blue sky and you have no idea how awesome he is not one fucking clue but you will learn, lady, you will learn.’_

Ms Morstan practically beams at the pair of them. ‘Here’s my card.’ Her name – Mary Morstan, Barrister and Solicitor – and contact details are printed in an unfussy font. ‘I’m off until the New Year, but I could use a consultant with your particular skills.’

Sherlock is a bit astonished, so John takes the card and slips it into his pocket. He jogs his fingers into Sherlock’s spine, where she can’t see, and Sherlock fishes out one of his own new cards for her.

The card reads:

**The Baker Street Agency**

**Peculiar Puzzles Solved**

**Sherlock Holmes**

This is followed by the address at Captains of Industry and Sherlock’s phone number.

Mary Morstan shakes his hand again, shakes John’s. ‘I look forward to doing business with you,’ she says.

She leaves, stopping to exchange a few terse words with the flinching, lying client and watches the little bastard do a runner. Then she goes to Jack the Ex-Cop, slips her hand into the crook of his elbow and the two of them head out towards Flagstaff Station.

‘Looks like you’ve got your first client,’ says John, patting the pocket containing Morstan’s card.

Sherlock grins up at his boyfriend. ‘ _We_ have, yes.’

‘Merry Christmas to us, then.’ John bends to kiss Sherlock on the cheek. ‘Let’s go home and celebrate.’

Sherlock grabs John by the hand and, with a jaunty skip in his step, they step out into their burgeoning and shared future.


	3. Christmas Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the day before Christmas, Sherlock gives John a gift that means more than than just what's under the wrapping. Meanwhile, in Fitzroy, Mycroft and Greg are making another Christmas Eve to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chook=chicken

Sherlock and John spent the night before the night before Christmas at John’s place in North Melbourne. They showered, they sprawled on the embroidered blanket on John’s bed and fed each other dolmades and grilled chorizo and cheese and olives, and licked up spilled oil and marinades. They carefully poured champagne over each other’s nipples and in the hollows of throat and spine, sipped bubbly joy from each other’s skin. Made love, and murmured endearments. Sherlock leapt up to scratch out a map of the new flat and plan where they’d put some of John’s things, and the things of Sherlock’s that he has removed from the Guildford Lane apartment to store here. The steampunk bee is next to the bat skeleton on John’s bookshelf, and the violin next to those. Two boxes of scientific equipment are stored in a corner.

The room is crowded with the accoutrements of their joint future, which has started already. They are giddy with it.

John has trouble sleeping, though. Sherlock plays for him – Christmas carols and lullabies – and John sleeps at last, but he’s fractious.

Sherlock loathes Moriarty even more for setting off this uneasiness in John. He sleeps lightly himself, staying awake to hum his rumbling baritone for John. John is normally a cuddler, but this night he shifts constantly. Sherlock wants to wrap him up like a cocoon, to sing soft in John’s ear, but John can’t help his restless legs and how his eyes roll under his closed lids.

So Sherlock lies awake most of the night, and pets John’s skin when it seems to help, and sings to him when petting doesn’t help, and says to him, ‘You’re all right. Sssh, John. Sssh. I love you. I will look after you. Ssssh.’

In the morning – the morning of Christmas Eve – Sherlock returns from his shower to find naked John (who had showered first) standing indecisively by his drawer. Staring at the third drawer. He starts when Sherlock comes into the room, and smooths his moustache in a nervous gesture.

Sherlock can’t stand to see John prevaricating like this. Whatever John wants or needs, John can have. Of course he can. In fact…

Sherlock, wrapped only his blue robe, steps past John – drops a kiss on his bare shoulder – and burrows a hand into one of the boxes of equipment. He emerges with a little parcel wrapped in festive paper.

‘Merry Christmas, John.’

John finally smiles. ‘Shouldn’t we wait at least until tonight.’

‘Oh, I have plenty more for tonight. And tomorrow. Just like you do.’

John laughs at that, because as much as they have both pretended they’ve only found one or two things for each other, they are completely aware that they’ve both gone a bit mad with the gifts.

John opens the gift. He blinks. He shakes out the item of clothing it contained. He gives Sherlock a questioning look. He seems a bit disconcerted. He licks his lips, with nerves, not desire.

‘Sherlock…’

‘Your other pairs are a bit worn and… I did some research. Several men recommended this style as particularly comfortable for everyday wear.’

‘I…’

‘You don’t ever have to feel self-conscious, John. And I don’t want you to ever edit yourself on my behalf. It’s not like it’s a problem for me either. They help you when you feel unsettled. They make you laugh. They relax you. I wanted to… I want to…’

Sherlock is suddenly overcome with the fear he has got it all wrong; that fun as it was for him to wear John’s lady knickers and for them to have fabulous tallywag-and-fancy sex at the hotel, that this was the wrong choice for something so personal to John.

‘It’s not about sex,’ blurts Sherlock, ‘It’s… I only meant… I want…’

And then John takes Sherlock’s face in his hands, the pretty floral full brief panties dangling from his fingers, and he kisses Sherlock to silence, calm, soft, affectionate little kisses.

‘Thank you,’ John says between kisses, ‘Thank you baby. Thank you. You are the best boyfriend. You are the best everything. Thank you.’ He keeps doing this until Sherlock stops panicking, and then he smiles and shakes the panties out to see them better.

They are high-waisted, purple, covered in a pink cabbage rose print. The waist and leg are trimmed in slightly lacy elastic.

‘They’re cute,’ says John, and he laughs, and his laugh is fifty percent relief, twenty five percent amusement and twenty five percent besotted-in-love with how his boyfriend gets it. Gets him.

John steps into the panties and pulls them up and runs his hand over them, over the way the cotton conforms to his body. He adjusts his cock in them and then stands, hands wide to, rather shyly, show them off to Sherlock.

Sherlock smiles. ‘The colour suits you. How do you feel?’

‘Comfortable,’ admits John, ‘A million miles away from Afghanistan, and from…’ he halts, but he can see that Sherlock knows. ‘It’ll be better once he’s sentenced,’ John says. ‘I’ll be better tomorrow. It’s was just… the way he looked at you. I wanted to break his nose again. Sorry.’

‘Don’t you ever be sorry. For anything.’ Sherlock takes John’s hand. ‘I don’t recall anyone but Mycroft ever being in my corner before. Greg, perhaps, but never like you. I like you being in my corner with me. I’m in your corner too, John. In all things. At all times. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ says John, eyes shining, and he looks amazed, and like he’s glowing all over. ‘I know that.’

‘I like being yours, John. I like you being mine.’

‘Good.’

John looks down at his pretty knickers that make him feel silly and unshackled from nightmares, and Sherlock can see the very moment when John gives up feeling awkward about them. He can see the precise moment where John accepts that Sherlock doesn’t only accept but _embraces_ everything. The need for silly pants on the bad days. The burning need to protect the man he loves. John’s intensity and his paradoxes and every single part of John that even John doesn’t always accept about himself.

Sherlock sees John understand that he can never, ever be too much or too strange. He can only ever be exactly what Sherlock wants, just as Sherlock is only ever exactly what John wants.

Sherlock opens the third drawer and takes out another of John’s older pairs. ‘May I?’

John studies him. Then his moustache quirks in a tell-tale of a smile he’s hiding. ‘The blue irises. Nice choice.’

Ten minutes later, Sherlock, in the blue iris briefs, and John, in his cabbage rose ones, are in the living room, singing rock and roll Christmas carols. John is waggling his bum and waving his hands over his head, and Sherlock is waggling his bum, too, which bounces enticingly and is spilling out of panties too small for his luxurious rear end. From time to time they grab each other for a raucous rockabilly swing dance around the room – they’ve shoved the sofa and chairs out of the way – and John teaches Sherlock to twerk, and Sherlock teaches John how to moonwalk, and they are both just about falling down with laughter at the whole ridiculous business, feeling free, feeling happy, while Jessica Mauboy sings,

 _I don't want a lot for Christmas_  
_There is just one thing I need_  
_Don't care about presents_  
_Underneath the Christmas tree_

 _I don't need to hang my stocking_  
_There upon the fireplace_  
_Santa Claus won't make me happy_  
_With a toy on Christmas day_

 _And I just want you for my own_  
_More than you could ever know_  
_You make my wish come true_  
_All I want for Christmas is you_

*

Meanwhile, that afternoon in Fitzroy…

Mycroft once shared Sherlock’s general cynicism about Christmas. He’d found out Santa was yet another lie his father told when he was only four, and neither Santa nor Mummy and Daddy had ever let him have a kitten, or a puppy, or a pony, or a Transformer or even the Narnia books. Not anything he actually wanted – only suits and Improving Books and extra tutoring and piano lessons.

He’d had years of disappointing gifts that demonstrated his parents had little idea who he was, only who they wanted him to be. (Well, he gave them credit for the piano lessons now, but he’d expanded his repertoire considerably from their stuffy preferences.)

For fifteen years, however, Mycroft has shared his life with Greg Lestrade, Mister Christmas himself. The man who organised his biker friends in an annual Christmas Drive that collected and distributed toys and hampers for families going through hard times.

‘It doesn’t matter a fart in a thunderstorm what Christmas means for your parents,’ Greg told him early on, ‘You can make your own meaning if you want to. It’s a welcome to summer party. It’s about winding down and spreading the love. Don’t like how your parents did Christmas? Don’t do it their way. Do it your own way. Or don’t do it, you don’t have to.’

Mycroft didn’t know how to do Christmas his own way, so he decided early on to do it Greg’s way, the Australian way, the summertime and barbecues way. And here they are, fifteen years on, and now they do Christmas the Mystrade way.

Tinsel and lights, which look at home and cheery in the middle of a bleak and grey European winter, look tacky and brassy in Australian summer sunshine. So when Greg decorates the house, with a few suggestions from Mycroft, the place looks like an explosion in a glitter factory; like Glenda the Good Witch has suffered glitter incontinence; like someone murdered a glitter pony. Like happiness has been converted into the colours of the rainbow and sprayed liberally around every wall and nook and stair railing. It’s garish and ridiculous and hilarious and mad with joy and Mycroft loves it – not because he knows his parents would hate it, but because Greg loves it, and because it makes them laugh.

While Greg gleefully decorates, Mycroft works in the kitchen. He uses the recipes Greg got from his mum and grandma and grandpop. Mycroft makes rum balls and white Christmas and the Christmas pudding, which he actually started making in August. He marinades meat for tomorrow’s barbecue. He prepares apricot stuffing in advance for the chicken – Greg calls it the Apri-Chook because Australians will never call something by its full name if some diminutive can be invented – and ensures they have coals for the Weber. He plans salads and stocks up for bucks fizz – for some reason this is not a name the Australians use and they just call it champagne and orange.

Later, go down to Carols by Candlelight. Singers include people who were clearly icons during Greg’s childhood but are utter strangers to Mycroft, even after fifteen years. But the singing is lovely and it’s nice to be out on a warm night singing songs with Greg at his side.

Back home, they finish last minute gift wrapping and sit down to what Greg swears is a family tradition, though not necessarily a broader Aussie one. Greg cuts the Christmas ham and makes them ham, cheese and pickle sandwiches served on fresh white bread. They watch a Christmas film (this year it’s Miracle on 34th Street, the original) and drink white wine.

And then, sitting on the sofa together, pleasantly tipsy, they give each other a Christmas Eve gift. It’s usually something either too saucy or too personal to give in front of other people on Christmas Day.

They’ve been fifteen years together, though, and this year they know exactly what they are giving each other this Christmas Eve. They have planned it. It’s not a surprise.

This year, even though they can’t get married in this country, they will be wearing rings.

They went to Lord Coconut together a month ago and placed special orders. Were measured.

Mycroft opens the velvet box – it hasn’t been wrapped – revealing a Kathleen O’Neill design. Silver with a gold insert.

Greg takes it out of the box and kisses Mycroft’s ring finger before sliding the ring into place.

Then he opens the box Mycroft gives to him, and in it is a silver ring etched with the geographic coordinates of the place they first met – the university library. _Home is Where the Heart Is_ , the ring’s called, made to order by Ali Alexander.

Mycroft kisses Greg’s hand – his finger and his palm and his wrist. His blue eyes are shining. A tear actually falls, and Greg brushes it away with his thumb, then kisses the next few away.

‘For ever and ever, my beautiful boy,’ says Greg, brown eyes glowing with happiness. There’s not a whisper of the larrikin about him right now. Not even of glee. Only adoration and devotion and love love love. ‘In sickness and in health, poor as church mice or more money than Midas. Until my last breath.’

‘Until mine,’ says Mycroft, ‘You are… you are… I love you. Greg. My Greg. My… my….’

Once upon a time, Mycroft Holmes was the most gifted man on the planet with words. Once upon a time, he had been groomed to run the world, or at least the United Kingdom, with his command of language, of facts, of knowledge of the intricate patterns of diplomacy and threat and political expediency.

Since then he has learned that some feelings can only be poorly expressed in words. Some feelings are too deep and too profound for mere syllables to encompass, and rather than try, his language centres shut down. The most eloquent man in the world can only stammer and say his love’s name.

And his love understands, and instead of words, they melt together on their sofa, kissing and happy-crying their own language.

And then Greg weep-laughs and says, ‘I got you a surprise too,’ and presents Mycroft with a gift that turns out to be a golden monocle and… yes. A steampunk dildo. Mycroft lodges the monocle over his left eye and says sternly, ‘Well, young urchin, what have you to say for yourself this Dickensian Christmas Eve?’

‘Please sir,’ says Greg in a cheeky mock-Oliver Twist tone, ‘Can I have some more?’

‘Have you been naughty or nice?’

‘Naughty, naughty, naughty,’ says Greg fervently.

‘Then I will see to your _more_ once you have unwrapped your own surprise, whippersnapper,’ says Mycroft in his very posh I-once-ruled-the-world voice.

Greg unwraps the presented box and pushes aside tissue paper to reveal a soft leather riding crop and a black lacy corset. ‘Christ,’ he breathes reverently.

And he strips and dresses in his corset, and Mycroft strips down to the monocle, and they give each other a glorious Christmas Eve that is very naughty and very, very nice indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Mauboy's version of [All I want For Christmas is You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl9VLNvTzME%20)
> 
> John's cabbage rose knickers are [ here](http://www.herroom.com/Bali-2633-Skimp-Skamp-Brief-Panty.shtml). The site has testimonials from a lot of blokes who wear their panties for everyday as well as sexy special days.  
> 
> 
> As for Mycroft and Greg:  
> [Mycroft's ring](http://www.lordcoconut.com/shop/gold-insert-ring/)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> [Greg's ring](http://www.lordcoconut.com/shop/home-is-where-the-heart-is-ring/)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> And hello, yes, [a steampunk dildo!](http://www.littledeathray.com/infernal-devices/little-death-ray-mark-3b/)  
> 


	4. Christmas Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's John and Sherlock's first Christmas Morning together. Sherlock can't help thinking in hashtags. And John gives Sherlock a present which turns into a present for John.

Sherlock stirs awake but does not open his eyes. Instead, he feels the day with every other sense.

The sun is blushing through the curtain of John’s bedroom window: it’s early, not long after dawn, but Sherlock can feel the incipient heat of a scorching Christmas Day behind it – partly the scent of jasmine and eucalyptus, partly the stillness already settled around the day, partly the tang of dust and hot bitumen in the air.

He’ll have to lather on the sunscreen if they go outdoors for longer than it takes to get to Fitzroy. Australians have a SPF 50+ sunscreen but Sherlock thinks he’ll be best served by wrapping his entire body in sunscreen impregnated bandages and hiding in a basement. John has already had to spend a day and a half gently rubbing soothing lotions into Sherlock’s sunburned neck and back, compliments of spending too long in the Adelphi pool.

Actually, John’s method of distracting Sherlock from the sting involved spreading that lotion on a lot of places still milky white, and in one spot that has never seen sunlight, and slowly and sweetly fucking Sherlock into forgetting his reddened skin.

#deathbysummer #revivalbycock

Afterwards, John had run them a cool bath and they’d spent another hour in it together, Sherlock on his belly cuddled into John’s belly and chest, humming Bach while John gently poured chilled water over the sunburn. Sherlock almost didn’t mind the singeing.

Beside him, John is sleeping soundly, draped partially over Sherlock’s torso despite the overnight temperature hovering in the mid-twenties. Where their bodies meet, their skin is slightly tacky with perspiration, but Sherlock doesn’t mind. What’s important is that John was not restless last night. He has relaxed again.

The cabbage rose knickers did the trick yesterday. #pantycureFTW. They’d spent most of the day laughing and being ridiculous, enjoying having free run of John’s place. (Irene had claimed she was heading to the States to see family for Christmas, which Sherlock knew to be a lie. Her packing was all wrong. He thinks she’s gone to Queensland, not Brisbane, somewhere further north, but doesn’t care enough to pursue the issue.)

Sherlock, eyes still closed, conjures up an image of himself in John’s blue lilac knickers, dancing and playing the fool. And enjoying it. He’s never felt confident enough with anyone to be utterly silly with them before. It’s like he’s unearthed a new wing of himself, opened up a door in the mind palace to find a room filled with giddy foolishness that he wants to run into, spin into, coat himself in the luxurious folly of it. He never knew that in loving someone as much as he loves John, he could discover secrets about _himself._

Sherlock inhales. He likes how their bodies smell together in the morning: faint notes of soap and shampoo, a little of the spices in last night’s Thai, a waft of peppermint toothpaste, an earthy tang of John’s perspiration and his own, simply from the proximity of their sleep. Some mornings there’s the scent of sex, too. Whatever its daily make-up, there’s a solid underlying John-and-Sherlockness of their bodies in the morning, and it always makes Sherlock feel calm and happy. Sherlock wishes he could bottle it. _#eaudejoie_

John’s fingers move slowly against Sherlock’s sternum. Sherlock, whose arm is around John’s shoulders, holding him close, moves his fingers against John’s back in response.

‘Merry Christmas, Sherlock.’ John’s voice is a sleepy murmur. He puckers and kisses the skin next to Sherlock’s armpit, since that’s where his face is. He hums happily and snuggles closer.

Sherlock opens his eyes and they crinkle in indulgent amusement at John’s face. ‘Good morning. Merry Christmas.’ He shifts his arm so he can pat John’s bum. ‘So. Were you naughty or nice this year?’

‘Mmmmmm,’ says John, smoodging his moustache into Sherlock’s ribs, tickling him, ‘Must’ve been a good boy. Santa brought me an early present.’ He kisses Sherlock’s ribs then sticks out the tip of his tongue to delicately lick the skin. ‘Tasty tasty genius boyfriend.’

Sherlock turns suddenly, scooping his arms around John, pushing John onto his back, and then straddling him so that Sherlock can kiss John’s mouth and face and chin and throat and chest. He licks John’s nipples. #tastytastyperfectJohn

John, giggling, arches up into Sherlock’s mouth and then flings his arms wide on the bed to give Sherlock carte blanche on his body. Sherlock uses the opportunity to tickle him, so John is forced to retaliate, which is a challenge because Sherlock isn’t ticklish.

Well, he _thought_ he wasn’t ticklish. It turns out it’s just that nobody’s tried to tickle him since he was five. The two of them ended up yelping with laughter on the bed, and then kissing, and then rutting lazily, though that ceases soon enough and they’re just tangled up together, kissing, warm, blissful.

‘Stay right here,’ murmurs John, but his attempts to leave the bed are thwarted by octo-boyfriend winding metres of limbs around him. John doesn’t even try to argue. They just spend another ten minutes giving each other the Christmas Gift of Tongue.

‘Whasstime?’ John asks in an interlude between sucking on Sherlock’s earlobe and nuzzling Sherlock’s hairline.

‘Qu-qu-quarter past s-s-six.’ Sherlock is having trouble getting his syllables to work.

John huffs a laugh. ‘Were you this impatient Christmas morning when you were little?’

‘No. Santa never left me anything worth being up early for.’

‘Santa never left me anything worth staying in bed for,’ counters John. He proceeds to make sure Sherlock know he’s definitely worth staying in bed for. Probably till the end of the month. Possibly till next Christmas. No hurry, though. It’s all kisses and soft sucking of his skin, his warm hands over Sherlock’s body, feeling every muscle, and Sherlock’s returning the compliment.

They’re getting hard now.

#christmastree #christmaswood #betheangelontopofmytree

Before Sherlock’s last hashtag thought can be translated into getting John to ride him, John disentangles himself. ‘I really want to,’ he says breathlessly, ‘But there’s something I want to give you first.’ John slides a hand over his erection, tugging himself briefly, and Sherlock whimpers a little. With a saucy grin, John dashes out, naked, to the living room and the Christmas tree where presents await. While he’s gone, Sherlock lies on his stomach on the bed and retrieves a number of parcels from under the bed.

He counts them. Thinks there are too many. Puts three of them back. Changes them for a different three. Is in the middle of switching them around a third time when John returns to the bedroom and sees what he’s up to and starts giggling.

‘I’ve hidden another four at the hotel,’ John confesses over his armful of gifts.

Sherlock looks at him over the tumble of presents taking over the bed. ‘I have four more there myself. No. Five.’

‘So.’ John’s glance flickers from the mound of gifts in his arms to the mound on the bed to Sherlock and round again. He puffs out a laugh. ‘So. Moderation is our watchword then.’

Sherlock snorts. ‘As it has been from the start.’

John lowers the pile of presents onto the mattress, clambers back into bed and kisses Sherlock.

‘Merry Christmas you amazing bastard,’ John says.

They take turns unwrapping presents. Some of them are silly, some are practical, some are strange and all are wonderful.

Sherlock’s gifts for John include jars of stuffed olives, packets of exotic spices, a cravat the colour of John’s eyes, a pair of the most luxuriantly soft socks John has ever felt in his life, a gum leaf from the tree under which they had their picnic in Fitzroy gardens gilded and turned into a bookmark, a coffee bean lapel pin from Lord Coconut and a ring etched with the chemical symbol for coffee to go with it, and an antique pill press from Wunderkammer. And of course yesterday’s knickers.

John’s gifts for Sherlock include a tiepin repurposed from the wood of a broken violin, a print of an 1895 map of Melbourne, a set of cufflinks, also from Lord Coconut, decorated with John’s own fingerprints, a pair of black-and-purple patina shoes John has made himself, a pair of black leather spats made by Julia DeVille , a book of unsolved Australian crimes, a bumper book of Where’s Wally and a stopwatch, and hair product guaranteed to hold Sherlock’s curls in line in public (even John’s favourite curl, the one that is the first to escape, just below Sherlock’s ear, when Sherlock’s hair starts winning the fight), and the item that John went to fetch in the first place.

Sherlock opens the box and pulls aside the tissue paper to see. He smiles. Knowing how John has longed to see him in pretty underwear, Sherlock slipped a note with his size and a suggested retailer into John’s inner pocket, simultaneously letting John know that he wanted to try it, and how he wanted to begin.

The pretty lacy knickers are plum coloured – John’s choice, but they match the plum purple of the shirt John wore on their first date, and that Sherlock wore the next day. (He wears that shirt still, because John loves the colour on him.) In with the panties are a pair of black silk stockings with patterned trim.

Sherlock’s Christmas wood is on the rise again. He burrows his nose in the soft fabric of the underwear and batts his eyelashes over the top of the bundle at John, who locks eye with him, mesmerised.

#trimmytreeJohn

Honestly, Sherlock doesn’t even know with these hashtag thoughts anymore. All he knows is that his mind captures moments and tags them and at will those images and tags flash in his mind’s eye again, and now he’s getting hard again.

So Sherlock stands and he pulls on the purple panties and adjusts his plump cock in them. He rolls the stockings on. He slips his feet into the patina shoes – he’ll have to buy heels soon, he thinks – and he says, ‘Follow me.’

He walks out of the bedroom, pauses to consider his stride, then manages to walk away with a sway to his hips. His backside rolls enticingly. He picks up a bottle of lube and sways on.

John follows like he’s connected to his boyfriend via invisible wire, or like his cock is a dowsing rod, leading the way to delectable SherlockArse.

They pause at the bedroom door. Sherlock picks up their robes, and John, obedient without question, slips Sherlock’s blue robe over his shoulders and puts on his own, and then they are on their way out of the bedroom again.

Through the living room, to the back of the house.

Through the back door, into the yard.

Sherlock remembers the first night he spent with John here. He remembers realising that John had some kind of fantasy about sex in the back yard. And… well, it’s only 6:45 of a Christmas morning and if they’re quiet, he very much plans to give John another impromptu present.

John must know more or less what’s planned, but his hesitation is so brief that it might as well not exist.

Sherlock sways to the chair underneath the jacaranda tree that is festooned with tinsel and lights. Its purple flowers are a pale complement to Sherlock’s panties. He decides not to brush the dropped petals from the sturdy wooden recliner sun chair there in the shade. He simply adjusts the cushioning. He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t know yet if he’ll be bending over it or lying on his back with his legs in the air. Both options sound pretty damned good.

Then Sherlock splays his arms and cocks his hip and says, ‘Unwrap your present, John.’

With a low sound in this throat, part growl, part moan, John reaches out and pushes the robe from Sherlock’s shoulders. He brushes his palm over Sherlock’s crotch, and then brushes both hands over Sherlock’s hips. He crowds in close and takes handfuls of Sherlock’s lovely bum, barely covered by the swirls and dots of the pattern of the lace, but instead of squeezing hard, he’s rubbing delicate circles over Sherlock’s bumcheeks.

John nuzzles Sherlock’s face, then his throat. He kiss-nibbles Sherlock’s nipples, and a line down to his belly button. He sinks to his knees on the ground and tongue fucks Sherlock’s innie navel, still caressing Sherlock’s lace-clad arse.

He mouths at the cloth. He mouths at Sherlock’s erection through the front of the panties. He moves down and kisses the skin bared between the legs of the panties and the tops of the stockings.

Sherlock responds languidly to the push of John’s hands, and he turns, and John kisses the backs of his thighs. John kisses the skin of Sherlock’s bottom that is not contained in purple lace, and he breathes hot into the cleft, and tongues through the cloth into it while his right hand skims over the bulge of Sherlock’s shaft and the other cups Sherlock’s sac and softly squeezes.

John stands again, behind Sherlock, and licks and kisses up Sherlock’s spine so that Sherlock feels John’s moustache on every bump. Sherlock whimpers.

‘Sssh, sweetie,’ whispers John huskily, ‘Don’t wake the neighbours.’

There’s a new neighbour in the house next door. Sherlock swallows the next whimper. He definitely does not want to be interrupted.

John spends a lot of time kissing, caressing, nuzzling, admiring barely-clad Sherlock. He teases Sherlock’s erection with not enough friction and soft sucking that’s never for long enough through the fabric of the panties.

John has shed the robe, because they are sheltered by a hedge on one side, the jacaranda tree, a small retaining wall which supports a brick barbecue on the other side. It’s more sheltered than exposed. To be seen, someone would have to hear them and look over the fence at just the right angle.

The idea that someone might excites Sherlock. It reminds him of the woman on the GPO steps. Anyone looking now would see #magnificentnakedJohn worshipping Sherlock with his hands and mouth and soft breaths. #dontyouwishyouwereme? #ilovebeingme

Slowly, John worship of Sherlock’s body leads him to gently laying Sherlock on the cushions of the recliner and gently pulling the front panties down to just under his balls. Sherlock’s cock springs right up, like a flagstaff, like a signal to the ships at sea #ahoyahoyreadytoboardahoy!

Then – and Sherlock was not expecting this at all – John kneels across Sherlock’s hips, takes the lube and applies it generously between his own legs. Sherlock is speechless with lust and wonder as John fingers himself, pausing in between lavish applications of lube to kiss Sherlock’s luscious mouth.

And when John’s arse is open and wet and slick, and his has wiped his fingers clean on the robe, John caresses Sherlock’s hips, and fondles Sherlock’s balls through the silky cloth folded underneath them, and he says, ‘Okay? Comfortable? Not too tight?’

Sherlock says, ‘Fine. I’m. I’m. F-f-f- good. Good to go.’

And John Watson the Perfect Human Being sighs as he sinks down on Sherlock’s Christmas Cock and wriggles until he’s fully seated, and he grins and kisses Sherlock, and then he starts to circle his hips. To roll them. To rise up and sink down. To tease Sherlock’s cock with little motions and long slides.

John’s cock is, in coats of arms terms, a Lion Rampant, rising flushed from curly golden hair. His desire is flowing slick, leaking onto Sherlock’s belly, and Sherlock can feel the panties pulled firm across his own lush bottom, he can feel the lace against his hips, and he gathers enough thoughts together to realise that John can feel the panties and the stockings against his thighs, the back of his own bum, and that as John moves he can feel the friction of the silk on his skin, as well as, obviously, Sherlock’s hot prick sunk to the hilt inside him.

Sherlock holds his breath on a whimper #silentnightholyfuck and John smiles at him like a fallen angel and he takes his own sweet time riding Sherlock’s beautiful cock, and Sherlock is stretched out underneath John, holding onto John’s thighs and being ridden, letting John move and thrust and tighten his glutes and lean down to kiss him. Sherlock tries to fondle and stroke John’s cock, but John lifts Sherlock’s hands to press them over his pecs. Sherlock fondles and tweaks John’s nipples instead and, swallowing a gasp, John bucks, and grinds and thrusts and speeds up and slows down and bites down a cry.

Roll. Rise. Sink fast, sink slow, up, grind a circle, wriggle and grin at the way Sherlock’s hips jerk up. Sherlock mouths please, please, please, and John abandons the tease. He sits up, puts his hands back to rest over Sherlock’s stocking-clad thighs and he bucks his hips. He pushes forward again, pinches Sherlock’s stiff nipples, then soothes them with his thumb, and thrusts down and thrusts and thrusts down and down and...

Sherlock swallows a cry as he comes and John rides him through it and then comes himself, spurting over Sherlock’s stomach and chest, his head thrown back, mouth open wide in a joyful cry but no sound emerging.

John sits there a moment, happily wrecked, then folds over in a controlled slump to kiss Sherlock’s nose and lips.

‘Like the panties?’ he asks, laughing.

‘Oh yes,’ murmurs Sherlock in a rumble, ‘Though I forget if they’re a present from you or for you. For _us_ , I think. Mmm.’ He winds his arms around John’s waist and licks perspiration from John’s throat. ‘Yes thank you, Mr Watson, I love my pretty panties. And I love you being the angel on my tree.’

That makes John snort with laughter, and Sherlock has to concede that as sex talk goes, it is remarkably silly, but John is Eskimo-kissing him now and saying, ‘I like being the angel on your tree too. You have a fabulous tree.’ And he’s sing-laughing as quietly as he can, to the tune of _Tannenbaum_ , ‘Oh, Sherlock’s cock, oh Sherlock’s cock, thy length is so amazing; not only hot in wintertime, but in the summer so sublime, oh Sherlock’s co…’

He doesn’t get to finish the song because they’ve both started giggling uncontrollably, until John subsides on top of Sherlock with a happy sigh. He kisses Sherlock’s bare chest, then reaches up to snag a trailing bit of tinsel. This he drapes around Sherlock’s hair like a glitzy crown. He grins at the result and kisses Sherlock’s nose.

‘I love you,’ says Sherlock, and his pale eyes are washed bright as the infinite summer sky but softer and even warmer.

John’s eyes are equally infinite and warm. ‘I love you, too. I don’t need anything but you. Ever. But thank you for all the beautiful things. Thank you for being amazing.’

John kisses him softly so Sherlock doesn’t get to reply yet, though he’ll say it later, over breakfast, once John has retrieved his robe and they make a dash for the indoors just as the new neighbour comes outside to investigate non-regulation-Christmas-noises.

#perfectJohnisperfect #thankyouforbeingperfect #myangelmyangelmyangel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's panties  
> sourced from [Playonbothsides](http://playonbothsides.tumblr.com/post/126205355980)  
> 
> 
> Other of John and Sherlock's xmas gifts to each other will be posted on [ CaptainsofJohnlock's tumblr.](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/)


	5. Christmas Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock arrive for Christmas lunch and Greg and Mycroft's place. Gifts are exchanges; food is eaten; songs are sung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking a while to get done. I'm actually meant to be writing stuff for a paying client. Oh well. That's next.
> 
> Note: ABBA was HUGELY popular in Australia. I mean, like MEGA HUGE.

The doorbell at Bell Street rings, and Greg Lestrade, in a preposterous Surfing Santas Hawaiian shirt, half unbuttoned over his denims, and in bare feet, opens it.

‘Ho, ho, ho!’ he cries, and flings a handful of tinsel over John and Sherlock’s heads, ‘Meeeeerry Christmas!’

Sherlock winces at the shirt. ‘That’s an abomination.’

‘Are you one of those British purists who think Christmas isn’t Christmas without freezing your balls off or trying to stay awake for the Queen’s Speech? Because if you are, today is going to be a huge disappointment.’

Sherlock has, thus far, had an excellent Christmas which has involved a thoroughly fantastic fuck in panties under the jacaranda tree, breakfast in bed, sucking John off in the living room under the mistletoe Sherlock had placed on the Christmas tree (John wouldn’t stop giggling, because the proper angel on top of the tree was, he said, cheering them on) and John loved all the presents Sherlock chose for him, even the ring, which was probably a bit too far, too fast, but let’s face it, that’s their style. John is wearing the silver ring on his right hand, but he keeps smiling at it.

Sherlock likes Australia on the whole, except for its stupid lack of marriage equality. To be fair, almost every Australian he knows is likewise livid at (and also embarrassed by) the failure of the federal government to reside in the 21st century. Its lack is very likely the only reason he hasn’t already proposed.

‘Merry Christmas, Greg,’ says John, grinning at the shirt. He’s gone back to the lumbersexual look today: dark green trousers, red braces over a tan shirt, a homburg hat worn at a rakish angle and his own red-stained patina shoes. Sherlock is wearing his new purple-stained patina shoes, and his ensemble is built around them. Dark trousers, the purple shirt that John wore on their first date that he has now appropriated, with John’s enthusiastic approval.

John is carrying two bags. Sherlock has an overnight bag and his violin. Mycroft emerges from the kitchen, dressed in a festive apron. He looks faintly surprised to see Sherlock, as though he expected his brother to pike out at the last minute.

Amelia Airhead, Greg and Mycroft’s tortoiseshell cat, comes to inspect them. She sniffs at trouser cuffs, head-butts strategically so that she can leave white hairs on dark cloth, ginger and black on lighter colours, then abandons them as lacking interest. Amelia Airhead curls up on a bed made of a pink woollen monstrosity which John recognises after a moment as the 8-bit penis scarf Sally knitted for Greg for the work Kris Kringle. Greg hooted with laughter and Mycroft forbade him to wear it, so it appears the family matriarch has inherited it.

At the moment it’s just the four of them, and after Mycroft has ensured everyone has a drink – beer or champagne, according to taste – they exchange gifts.

John has made Greg and Mycroft a picture. Sherlock made the frame for it in John’s studio, hand-staining the wood, which is also carefully embedded with needles, thread, leather.

It’s the first time anyone other than Sherlock and the printer has ever seen John’s work. It’s the first time John and Sherlock have made art together.

Mycroft and Greg stare at it a while, and John fears that they hate it so much they can’t think of anything nice to say. Then Sherlock squeezes his hand and nods towards where Greg and Mycroft are holding hands too, clasped tight, and so still. Then Greg rests his temple against Mycroft’s, and he smiles, and he says, ‘You are.’

Mycroft turns to kiss Greg’s cheek. ‘Yes. Yes, you are, too.’

They lower the portrait of the two of them, labelled _Home_ , and continue to be unable to find words, though their soft, radiant smiles are the best language.

‘Thanks,’ says Greg after a moment in a choked voice.

‘Yes John. Sherlock. Thank you.’ Mycroft smiles. He seems to be swallowing a lot.

John clears his throat. ‘You’re welcome.’

Greg and Mycroft’s gift to John and Sherlock are matching leather satchels with elegant cloth interiors and trim. Rather than initials tooled into the leather, Sherlock’s bears a handsome bee, stained golden and black, while John’s sports what looks like a square of honeycomb, but the hexagons are strategically stained and etched with letters and numbers to show the chemical formula for caffeine. (John senses a theme in his gifts, but since he is passionate about coffee, he’s utterly delighted at all the coffee-themed goodness coming his way.)

Mycroft and Greg exchanged the rest of their gifts this morning, and Greg shakes out his new Christmas T-shirt – “This Guy Loves Christmas”, complete with two thumbs pointing back to the wearer.

‘Which one?’ he asks the room, ‘Surfing Santas or the new one?’

‘Please, god, take my eyes!’ cries Sherlock, ‘John, save me!’

John folds his hands over Sherlock’s skull and face. ‘Keep your eyes towards me, sweetheart, I’ll protect you from the nasty man’s nasty shirts. Oh god! And his nasty chest! Don’t look, Sherlock, you’ll be blinded!’

‘You’re just jealous of my stunning body,’ says Greg as he takes off the Santas, briefly flashing his tatts, and pulls on the new shirt.

Sherlock shudders dramatically.

‘You think my body’s stunning, don’t you My?’ Greg bellows towards the kitchen.

Mycroft emerges, strides over to his darling, kisses him and says, ‘You are the perfect specimen of manhood,’ kisses him again and returns to the kitchen.

Greg grins smugly at the in-laws while Sherlock flees and John laughs.

‘You dag,’ says John, wielding one of his favourite bits of Aussie slang, for which there is no adequate translation in British English. _Wally_ is closest, maybe, but _dag_ encapsulates affectionate teasing of someone who’s unfashionable, socially inept even, but likeable.

Greg just grins and gives John two thumbs up. ‘Come help me with the barby, you lazy bastard,’ he says, in that warm way that Australians swear at the people they like best, ‘Tell Uncle Greg what Sherlock got you for Christmas besides an orgasm. Ha! Knew he had! You gotta learn not to look so fucking smug when I say that.’

While John and Greg organise the barbecue, seasoning the plate with plenty of beer, Sherlock watches his brother in the kitchen.

Mycroft is placing food onto plates, including the pastries that Greg has made for the occasion. There’s enough food to keep six people going for four days, or one Christmas lunch for eight. Mycroft hums as he works, and neither demands or expects conversation from his brother.

Finally, Sherlock breaks his silence.

‘Congratulations.’ Sherlock does not have to do anything so gauche as to look pointedly at Mycroft's new ring, or mention the one he saw on Greg's left hand.

‘Thank you,’ says Mycroft, and he spends a second just glowing all over, like his happiness is an internal sun that lights up galaxies.

‘In London…’ starts Sherlock, then stops, because they both know why Mycroft will never take Greg to London so they can marry there and then return to Australia. Mycroft will never set foot in England again. Not while their father lives. It’s not likely that Mycroft will fall under that bastard’s influence again, but that’s not the point.

Sherlock takes a breath and exhales and he says, ‘I never said. Thank you.’

When Sherlock was first in Australia and their father tried to fetch him back home, Mycroft helped to run interference. He helped Sherlock to break free too, though to be fair, Sherlock hadn’t required much help.

‘Also,’ says Sherlock, and he shuffles his feet, and looks down, like this is hard, ‘I never said… you’re better. With him. With Greg. I like you, with Greg.’

Mycroft smiles. ‘I like me with Greg too.’

Sherlock nods. ‘I like me with John.’

‘Yes,’ says Mycroft gently, ‘I see you do. And you’re good for him, too.’

Sherlock lifts his head at that, and searches his brother for a sign of a lie, but there is none.

He hadn’t known that he wanted to be good for John, too. He thought he was, but he had simply not known that he needed to know it was true. Mycroft and Sherlock have been a lot of things in the past, a lot of them not great, but Mycroft is, like Sherlock, honest. Not _brutally_ honest – not any more – but generally he does not say untrue things.

If Mycroft says Sherlock is good for John, then Sherlock _is_ good for John. Sherlock doesn’t have to rely on his own sometimes unreliable assessments of himself in a relationship. Sherlock feels like Mycroft has given him a gift.

‘I’ll set the table,’ he volunteers and goes out to set out plates and cutlery, placing the Christmas crackers that bear the names of all the lunch guests, and making room on the table for all the food. He ferries salads and baskets of bread from kitchen to dining room without complaint. His gift in return.

By the time Sally and Molly arrive, and Greg’s younger brother Gavin and his girlfriend Kylie, the table is like a multi-coloured cornucopia of plenty, laden with turkey, with giant prawns and a tower of oysters, with salads and cold meats. Greg and John come in with platters of steak, sausages, chicken breast, fish cooked in banana leaves, corn on the cob, potatoes baked among the coals wrapped in tinfoil. Greg’s home-made vegemite-and-cheese scrolls are on the table too.

Greg has cooked beer can chicken by stuffing an open can of beer into the orifice of a chicken and cooking it on the weber, and despite the crudeness of the preparation, it’s delicious.

John returns to the house with his sleeves rolled up, tie off, top few buttons undone, and Sherlock reacts like John has come in dressed as Hottest Sexiest Moustachioed Man Weekly’s Centrefold of the Year. John rewards him for his appreciation with a kiss.

John smells of sun and smoke and clean sweat and Sherlock wants to lick him from head to toe. He settles for the kiss, and brushing his nose against John’s ear, and all through lunch, whenever his hand his free, it is holding John’s under the table, or patting John’s thigh or knee, or feathering over the small of John’s back. John leans into every touch and at every opportunity touches Sherlock’s arm or thigh, and feeds him choice treats – peeling prawns for him, finding the biggest oysters for Sherlock’s plate. Sometimes Sherlock steals food from John’s plate, and sometimes he steals it only so he can break it in half and feed bites to John as well.

Greg would comment, only he’s doing the same for Mycroft, who is just as bad with Greg. Gavin and Kyle and Molly and Sally think the four of them are adorable.

Then Amelia Airhead puts in an appearance, miaows for her share of the spoils and Mycroft peels a prawn for her. She growls a little, seizes it in her jaws and she trots off to pounce on it and to show it who’s boss before chomping it down and spending a very satisfied half hour in post-prandial grooming.

Conversation roams over Christmases past. John wins the award for Worst Christmas Ever in a tie with the nearly killing himself by roasting himself along with the turkey, and the bushfire. Sally gets an Honourable Mention for the year she took Molly to meet her Dad and stepmum that began with stepmum telling Molly she’d ‘look so pretty if you did your hair nicely’, proceeded with her father’s, ‘it’s a phase, you just have to find the right boy’, and ended with Sally setting the Christmas tree on fire. An accident, she swears, but even Molly doesn’t believe her.

Crackers are pulled. Mycroft and Greg made the crackers themselves, putting little gifts into each, and Lindt balls, and home-made paper crowns, and cartoons drawn by Mycroft and captioned by Greg, though they’re still terrible Christmas puns. These get handed around and groaned at, in traditional form.

Desserts include the Christmas pudding and brandy sauce Mycroft has made from Greg’s family recipe. Greg’s pastry chef skills are further on display with fruit mince pies, puff-pastry stars made into little Christmas trees held together with custard, mini pavlovas, and snowman cupcakes because Mycroft had wistfully commented on the last White Christmas he’d had, in Switzerland.

Molly’s widowed mum lives in New Zealand but is on a Christmas cruise with Molly’s younger sister and her tribe of kids. Sally’s Dad and stepmum buggered off to Perth eight years ago and Sally would rather dig her own eyes out with a novelty teaspoon than willingly seclude herself in a house with them for more than an hour ever again, so here they are, having a wonderful time surrounded by people who don’t ask them to apologise for who they are (or who they love).

After lunch, there’s a lot of lying around feeling fat and contented, but then Greg fetches his guitar and Mycroft opens up his piano, and there’s a bit of carolling. Sally’s got her guitar too, Greg’s brother Gavin has a small African drum, and Sherlock has brought his violin as requested, so it’s quite a little impromptu concert. Molly, Kylie and John sing along, enjoying the silliness.

When they play _O, Tannenbaum_ , Sherlock smirks at John. When _Oh Little Town of Bethlehem_ comes up, it’s John’s turn to smirk, remember the lyrics Sherlock made up as he sprawled with his head on John’s stomach, having just given John his Christmas blow job under the mistletoe:

 _Oh perfect John of North Melbourne_  
How perfect is your prick?  
I watch it rise between your thighs  
And then give it a lick…

The traditional carols (and non-traditional versions) give way to Tim Minchin’s _White Wine in the Sun_ , which Greg and Mycroft play together and Greg sings.

_I really like Christmas.  
It’s sentimental I know, but I just really like it._

This leads into Minchin’s _Not Perfect_ , though Mycroft changes the body lyric to ‘ _It’s 38 and four months old_ ’ but he keeps the line, ‘ _it’s done stuff it wasn’t meant to do’_ (and he and Greg smirk about that) and he smiles at, ‘ _I spent so much time hating it, but it never says a bad word about me_ ’, and Greg kisses his cheek, and Mycroft glows again.

Then Greg sings, ‘ _This is my brain and I live in it; it’s made of love and bad song lyrics’_ and they glow at each other.

When they sing, ‘ _it’s not perfect, but it’s mine’_ , John leans close to Sherlock and murmurs, ‘Yours is.’ Sherlock replies, ‘You are.’

And they _glow_.

The next thing the whole afternoon is rocketing off into non-Christmas-song mayhem.

This is what fourteen childhood years of classical piano lessons have come to. _Dancing Queen_ , and Mycroft dragging his fingers down the keys in a riff, then playing the signature themes with abandon worthy of Elton John. Then Sherlock flips his violin under his chin and makes a similar joyful mockery of a childhood of joyless violin lessons.

Mycroft and Sherlock play a few moments of Chopin’s Nocturne for Piano and Violin to prove that they can, before, with a twinkle is his eye, Mycroft starts to play an instantly recognisable opening and grins at Sherlock.

It’s a song Sherlock taught himself and then played specifically to piss off their father. A song about murder, sung by the queerest man Sherlock, at fourteen, had ever seen and in some ways tried to emulate, mostly be being as outrageous as possible.

Sherlock grins back and starts to sing.

_Mama, just killed a man.  
Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead…_

And it’s on for young and old, Sally and Greg coming in on the guitar, people shifting to take on the harmonies to give Bohemian Rhapsody its full respect.

Amelia Airhead takes advantage of the distraction to steal a leftover prawn from the table and while Beelzebub has a terror put aside for the singers, she is visiting Cat God Devastation on the prawn, the Christmas paper and a bauble hanging from the bottom of the tree, which she manages to dislodge and chase across the room into the kitchen before she gets bored.

It may not be a traditional Christmas by broad definitions, but it remains somehow a very Australian Christmas, and certainly a very Mystrade Shindig kind of Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greg's Christmas Shirts:  
>   
> 
> 
> The 8-bit penis scarf:  
> 
> 
> Greg's pastries  
> Snowman Cupcakes  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> [ Puff Pastry Christmas Trees](http://www.puffpastry.com/recipe/24057/puff-pastry-christmas-trees)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Songs:  
> Tim Minchin's [White Wine in the Sun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q%20) and [Not Perfect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg3PberzvXo)  
> Chopin's [Nocturne for Piano and Violin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvVX-6zb5N8)  
> ABBA's [ Dancing Queen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s)  
> Queen's [Bohemian Rhapsody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsl3gBVO2k4), the live version


	6. Boxing Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Boxing Day, the Captains of Industry crew go to the beach. Sherlock and Mycroft hide in the shade, admiring their boyfriends. Mycroft has a secret to tell, and the reason for the telling makes Sherlock think in hashtags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many Australianisms to cover. Check the end for pictures too, but ask if you don't get something and I'll add a glossary here.
> 
> Gough Whitlam - well known Labor Prime Minister, sacked by the Governor General, Kerr, in 1975 in a still infamous political event. Whitlam, a superb orator, is still quoted from the day, including "Maintain your rage!", "Well may we say God Save the Queen, for nothing can save the Governor General". The Kerr's cur comment is in reference to Malcolm Fraser, then leader of the conservative Liberal Party who became the next Prime Minister. He was reviled at the time, but these days, in the face of appalling reactionary right wing bullshit, we lefties look upon him with fondness. It's a funny old world.
> 
> Kris Kringle=Secret Santa

Sherlock hadn’t planned to join his brother for Boxing Day, but the beach cricket game was mooted and John’s eyes lit up, so here they are. Partly it’s because John wants to play beach cricket. Partly it’s because Sherlock wants to watch John play beach cricket.

They are at Brighton Beach at Mycroft’s bathing box, its doors flung open and interior emptied of folding chairs and beach blankets and replaced with eskies of Christmas leftovers.

Gigantic beach umbrellas provide extra shade outside the box, and the brothers are reclined on matching banana lounges, their fair skin protected by 50+ sunscreen, zinc cream across their noses and loose clothing. Sherlock’s hair is combed back, though less severely than usual, and John’s favourite curl under Sherlock’s left ear makes him look secretly rakish.

Sherlock’s dressed in pale blue board shorts that go down to his knee, and a darker blue tank top with an unbuttoned white shirt over the top. He’s wearing deck shoes rather than thongs because last time, even his feet got burnt. On arrival at the beach, John cheerfully applied the lurid pink zinc cream across Sherlock’s nose, and said he looked charming.

Sherlock much prefers the indoors, but there’s John. His John. Glistening with manly sweat and looking golden and glorious in the sun. John’s bowled Gavin out and looks smug about it.

John is an excellent bowler. Ambidextrous, though he favours his right arm now. His left stiffens and tires more quickly. Sherlock thinks John could easily play in the traditional Boxing Day Test Match on today at the MCG. Probably for England rather than Australia. _The Poms_ , as Australians are usually swift to point out, even when it’s not true, _could use the help_.

‘Perhaps,’ says Mycroft, apparently reading Sherlock’s mind, ‘But Greg could bat for them.’

Greg is a good batter, and a fast runner. He beats John on speed more because of the length of his legs than John’s old injury, thinks Sherlock.

John’s scars are white against the tan of his skin, at calf and shoulder. He’s wearing cargo shorts and red deck shoes, and he’s got a panama hat on to protect his face from the sun, along with a stripe of neon green zinc cream. He’s wearing a tank top as well, with a picture of the Mona Lisa in a hipster moustache. A gift from Harry. Sherlock suspects that John wasn’t meant to like it, but John finds it hilarious.

Sally Donovan’s up to bat next and she squares up to the bowler, keeps her eye on the spinning ball and belts that little red bastard into the sea. She does a war dance and high fives Molly, and gives John two very rude fingers and a raspberry. John laughs at her and she grins.

Gavin and Kylie dive off into the ocean to see if they can retrieve the ball. The mission devolves into them splashing each other and then kissing, and pretending no-one can see that she’s wrapped her legs around his hips under the surf.

Time for a timeout. John drops to his knees in the sand beside Sherlock and waggles his eyebrows. Sherlock reaches out to smooth out John’s moustache, then tilts his head up for a kiss.

(Alongside, Greg has gone to his knees at the end of the banana lounge and is kissing the tops of Mycroft’s feet, which are in thongs. Mycroft has put his book aside and looks down the length of his body – in long shorts and a T-shirt of a Batman costume underneath a dress shirt, his Kris Kringle from Violet – and wiggles his toes at his lover.)

John, post-kiss, glances back at the bathing box. ‘Who let you use this for today?’

‘It’s ours,’ says Mycroft, who is now reaching into the giant esky between the chairs to fetch a beer for Greg. Greg twists the cap off the Little Creatures ale and chugs half the contents.

‘I read they were impossible to buy,’ says John, ‘Cost as much as a house, and you can’t touch ‘em. Heritage listed.’

‘Hmm,’ says Mycroft.

John blinks at him, then nods. He already knows that Sherlock is very well off. Apparently, so is Mycroft.

Mycroft gives him a sly kind of smile. ‘I’m not only a tailor, you know,’ he says.

John raises his eyebrows.

‘I have something of a sideline,’ Mycroft admits.

Sherlock looks unsurprised by any of this. Instead, he’s looking for the beer John insisted on buying as an experiment – the Mountain Goat Christmas Ale (aged in old Lark whisky oak barrels). He takes it out of the pool of melted and intact ice and presses the wet bottle to John’s neck. John yelps a bit, then stretches his neck and sighs at how it cools his skin.

Greg smiles at Mycroft, and kisses his shin, then takes his left hand and kisses the new ring on it. ‘My boy’s a genius,’ he says happily, gazing into Mycroft’s eyes.

‘Smarter than me,’ Sherlock confesses. He’s gratified that John gives him a fond smirk, clearly thinking Sherlock is being modest and not believing a word of it, but it’s true. Mycroft is the smarter one. He was being groomed for roles not only high in the civil service, but very high in the secret service as well. He escaped just before he was about to be trapped in it forever. No wonder their father was furious with him. So was Sherlock for a while, fearing he was about to be dragooned into taking Mycroft’s place. Not something Sherlock was ever temperamentally suited to do. He’s glad he thanked Mycroft for helping him to escape that awful fate as well.

‘Greg and I make a lot of contacts in business and industry,’ says Mycroft. Through their bespoke businesses, they meet a _lot_ of wealthy and influential people. ‘I give them advice.’

‘You’re a consultant?’ says John. ‘What, on… investments and things?’

‘Nothing so mundane,’ says Mycroft. ‘And much broader.’

John thinks about what he knows of Sherlock’s mind, and applies it to Mycroft’s character.

‘Strategic advice.’

‘On a global platform,’ says Mycroft.

It transpires that many years ago, long before Martha Hudson established Captains of Industry, Mycroft was fitting a suit for a very important man, while Greg was handcrafting that important man a pair of shoes. The important man took a sensitive phone call in which he mentioned labour markets, South-East Asia and a competitor.

When he hung up, Mycroft, who was placing pins, said, ‘The weather will be a factor.’

‘What?’

‘The weather. Flooding in the north will affect service deliveries on the railways, and of course the child labour situation is untenable. Competition from the nearest neighbours will certainly upset the balance too, given the behaviour of the local government officials over the last six months. That will clash with the national powers, and the political situation will bring further instability to both countries. You could of course engage a new approach and consult more closely with your workforce and their communities. Poor families still require income, but introduce shorter hours, part time schooling and health care into the production line, it sets up a positive environment for both the current and future workforce, with more options for everyone. It would cost you a relative pittance, but bring stability to the area in question, attract the best workers, raise the quality of the product. The cut in profit would be marginal, but the triple bottom line improvements would easily counteract any complaint from the shareholders and there would of course be a boost in customer loyalty. Socially positive, environmentally sound, financially solid. Everybody wins.’

The important man wanted to know how the hell his tailor knew anything of the matter, but you must be careful when arguing with a man who is armed with a lot of pins and working on your inside leg and his boyfriend is giving you a stern eye while holding a hammer and shoe nails.

Mycroft explained about reading the news and looking at broader impacts on business than mere cost of services, any fool should know that, and laid the whole compelling analysis out, step by step.

The important man listened. He took Mycroft’s advice. He doubled his company’s share price in six months, adroitly avoiding the series of crises that his competitors had not foreseen.

He came to Mycroft for more advice, and Mycroft only smiled. He said he would pay for Mycroft’s advice, and Mycroft raised a single eyebrow.

He paid Mycroft a tidy sum in advance, and was given more excellent advice on his company’s plans to expand into South America, which resulted in more success for shareholders, workers and the environment.

That man sent a friend to Mycroft. The friend did not listen to Mycroft’s excellent advice, assuming he was bullshitting. That man’s business nearly collapsed because everything Mycroft predicted in the social, political and even weather-related arenas came to pass.

The friend didn’t make that mistake a second time, when he, too, paid up front.

Mycroft and Greg now had a small but steady clientele of people who came for tailoring, for shoes, for business advice that was radical, far-reaching and spot-on every single time. Mycroft synthesised data about politics, culture, climate, social trends, time of year, internal and international conflict, the temperaments of leaders and the mood of the people, and advised clearly and precisely on how to generate triple-bottom-line success every single time.

He and Greg were, as a result, quietly but distinctly really very well off.

At the end of this revelation, Greg, still grinning, kisses his Mycroft’s forehead and says, ‘it’s as well he only uses his powers for good instead of evil.’

‘I use them for a little bit of evil,’ says Mycroft mildly, but with a wicked sparkle in his eye, and Greg’s answering laugh is low and filthy.

John gathers they’re not talking about business now. He’d roll his eyes at them, only Sherlock’s doing that already, and so John waggles his eyebrows suggestively at Sherlock and makes his ears go a bit pink. Sherlock’s hand drops to John’s leg where he kneels and insinuates his long fingers up the inside leg of John’s shorts.

John Eskimo kisses him, leaving them each with a smear of the other’s zinc cream on the end of his nose.

Gavin and Kylie emerge from the sea, their hair in clingy spikes and smelling of salt and sunblock, and display the soaking wet cricket ball. That’s it for cricket for now.

With her usual perfect timing, Martha Hudson arrives. She has more beer and more food to add to the general banquet of leftovers, and that handsome neighbour of hers, Dimitri Panopoulas. Dmitri looks very pleased with his date and has brought a heaping plateful of homemade crescent-shaped walnut kourabiethes. Violet and Jayden the chef, who turn out to be dating, arrive next with yet more beer and their superbly behaved bulldog, Gough Whitlam (named for the former Prime Minister). Greg makes a joke about him being Kerr’s cur that only Martha and Dimitri understand.

After they’ve rested from lunch, John persuades Sherlock to have a quick swim. Away from the shore, under the surf, Sherlock wraps his legs around John’s hips and they kiss until Sally threatens to call the surf lifesavers out on them ( _Seems redundant,_ observes Violet with amusement, _they’re already giving each other mouth to mouth_ ).

A tipsy game of beach volleyball with a non-existent net proceeds while Sherlock sits dripping in the shade. John is being superbly athletic again and starts doing a victory-waggle of his bum every time he scores a point, until Greg gives the moving target a back-handed slap. Or would have, if John hadn’t darted out of his reach. An impromptu game of tag begins, but nobody can catch John to get him out until Greg, Gavin, Molly, Sally and Kylie all pile on top of him.

John wriggles out from underneath, commando crawls away and hoots in triumph until the unruly mob all chase him into the water of Port Phillip Bay. A splash-war results in total casualties, everyone coming back to the beach soaked to the skin and laughing.

Sherlock, watching all of this, says to Mycroft: ‘Why did you tell John about your consultation business? You don’t tell anyone about that.’

Mycroft turns the page of his novel and without looking up says, ‘He’s family now.’

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say to that. He isn’t even sure what he feels about that, until he identifies the fizz of warmth rushing up from his toes to his scalp not as heat rash but elation.

 _#GregandMycroftandSherlockandJohn_ , he thinks, only lain out like the Beatles T-shirt.

Greg&  
Mycroft&  
Sherlock&  
John.

A family.

Sherlock fishes a Beez Neez honey wheat beer from the esky for himself, and a Matilda Bay Minimum Chips lager for Mycroft. He opens it and hands it over and they sit together, in the shade under and Australian sky and have no need of further conversation as they watch their Found Family celebrate Boxing Day, Aussie-style.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zinc cream  
> 
> 
> Brighton Beach and the famous bathing boxes, which really are heritage listed and as expensive as a house, although only the size of a shed.  
>   
> 
> 
> John's tank top from Harry:  
> 
> 
> Mycroft's T-shirt, a Kris Kringle from Violet:  
> 
> 
> Kourabiethes  
> 
> 
> Mountain Goat Christmas Ale  
> 


End file.
